


Both of Us Above

by rowofstars



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Post-Episode: s07e04 Beauty, Spoilers, Spoilers for 7x04 Beauty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 04:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12548676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowofstars/pseuds/rowofstars
Summary: Rumplestiltskin in the immediate aftermath of Alice shooting him, and later at the hospital.





	Both of Us Above

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I have a lot of feelings after 7x04, as everyone does. Bits of this immediately came into my head and it had to come out. Apologies for all the typos. Spoilers.

It’s not the bullet that does it.

It’s not the burning, tearing of flesh as it punches a hole right through his body, or the acrid smell of gunpowder. It’s not the stabbing pain that spreads outward in waves from the hole left behind, or the ringing in his ears that drowns out even his own heartbeat.

It’s the startlingly sharp sound of the teacup shattering on the floor that brings the memories rushing back. 

_(Rumplestiltskin.)_

His head hurts more than his chest in that moment. Everything is reduced to a tiny, searing pinprick of pain and light that radiates out from between his eyes. He blinks up at the ceiling, at the darkness, and barely acknowledges Alice’s screams or the shrill sound of the sirens. Time rushes around him in a way it hasn’t for the last fifty-seven years as moment after moment collide and coalesce, fitting themselves back into the right places.

_(Belle.)_

This is it, he thinks. Finally. The white light, the face of his True Love - she’s there, waiting - and he tries to reach but his arms feel like they’re weighed down. Nothing will move right, not even his face as he tries to smile up at her. She leans in, closer and closer, and he’s done it somehow, he’s free. There’s a strange, fuzzy sensation, like he’s had too much to drink or too much tincture of poppy, and the room is moving around him. The darkness recedes and everything is warm, wrapping around his bones like the fire on a frigid winter day. He’s felt it before. It’s the moment when his soul tries to separate from his body, the instant that life and death are one in the same.

He wonders how he did it and when, why now, and if his boy is all right.

_(Oh, Belle.)_

Then it all fades away.

His jaw tenses in pain as they lift him into the ambulance, and they’ll assume it’s from the jarring movement of the stretcher, or the potholes they hit on the way to the hospital. They give him medication and sedatives, they’ll move to operate and find that nothing really needs doing. They’ll clean the wound and bandage him up, shaking their heads all the while. They’ll tell him he’s lucky, that the girl was a bad shot, that pain is manageable. 

They’ll tell him he’ll be fine.

_(They’ll be wrong.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

At least once a day she catches him looking.

He can’t help it, and she always gives him that knowing smile that tells him she feels the same way too. It’s always a little startling to realize such a thing, to understand that he’s a half of a whole. Where he was when they met is a far cry from their warm, pleasant little house with its perpetual sunset. Back then he was unloved and loveless, wondering, on the darkest nights, what sort of person he would be if he ever found Baelfire. He couldn’t have imagined this life, this love and family and home.

So he stares and gazes and watches.

He wasn’t lying when he’d told her he could remember how she looked in that moment in the library. He remembers everything from the color of her dress to the number of gray streaks in her hair, the book that she was reading and the way her elbow leaned on the table, her finger absently twirling the lock of hair at the front which was almost white.

He remembers the first time she found a gray hair. He’d teased her endlessly, but it’s his favorite mark of her age. She frowns at it in the mirror, but he thinks she looks even more beautiful. It brings her closer and closer to him, until their hair is collectively more silver than anything else, until the lines on her face match his, down to the crinkles by her eyes when she smiles.

When she passes him, he says nothing. She leans on him more heavily when they go for walks, and her hand shakes sometimes when she lifts her cup and saucer. He knows what’s coming, what has always been coming. His quest has been for naught, though he has had a mortal lifetime of the greatest peace he’s ever known. She tells him almost every day that they still have time.

But time always feels borrowed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Rumplestiltskin shuts his eyes as the door closes, wrinkling his nose at the heavy floral perfume that lingers after Belfry’s leaving. There are things that are still a bit hazy like Alice and the pirate and Roni - _Regina_ , he corrects - but it was like that before. He hates waking up from curses. He hates the pain in his head, the way everything tastes weird for a few days, and how his brain stumbles as he keeps himself from saying the wrong name. He wants to burn that god awful coat Weaver wears. It smells like cigarettes and cheap liquor, but he’ll have to tough it out for a little while. It would be entirely too weird for his new alter ego to show up to the station in a three piece suit, however much the entire concept of _jeans_ makes him cringe. 

He smirks. Belle would probably like it though, and he is doing this for her after all, as much as he is for himself. 

His fingers press over his eyes, and then up to rub at his temples. He hasn’t had a headache like this in ages, not since that night he and Belle had entirely too much of her latest experiment in winemaking. It was their thirtieth wedding anniversary, or so they’d mostly worked out after three days of arguing about how to account for the delays in time at the Edge of Realms. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if it was the math or the wine that had given him the headache.

He smiles and turns his head towards the window, settling back against the flat hospital pillows. A little wallow in self pity was probably allowable, all things considered, but he couldn’t shake the memory of his wife wearing nothing but blue lace and a sparkle in her eye. He's done enough wallowing for about seven lifetimes. It seems more fitting to remember the good things, knowing that soon it won't matter. He breathes slow and steady, each inhalation bringing a fresh wave of pain, but on the exhale he can feel something new, something calming; determination. His journey finally feels like it’s coming to an end. There is something about this place and this time that is where he needs to be.

_(Belle.)_

His mind keeps repeating her name, keeps recalling the little things like the pressure of her hand on his and the smell of her hair in the breeze. She is waiting for him, somewhere he doesn’t yet understand. It’s real though, that he knows. He knows it in the way he knows she loves him enough to make it happen, the way he knows his sons are proud of him. These are things that, once upon a time, he would have never believed. He tried before, so many times, but always failed because it never seemed like enough. 

_He_ never seemed like enough. Not to himself, and certainly not to others.

But Belle was right. She was always right.

She is in his bones, in his soul, and so very near now. He turns his head to the door, almost expecting to see her standing there, lips curved, silver streaked hair falling in her eyes. He'll remember her best like that. They were almost the same age. Well, if he was his actual mortal age anyway. Each year together was a gift he finally felt he deserved. Everything felt perfect and - whole.

The wound in his chest stings as he breathes deep, the curse working to repair the damage better than modern medicine ever could. A groan almost slips out as he shifts on the rubbery hospital mattress. He feels it then, a presence just outside his vision, wrapped in light and warmth.

_(Belle.)_

She’s there, always, watching him as he watched her. He will not fail her again.


End file.
